


gimme a shot to remember

by asphaltworld



Series: you know, there’s a lot of opportunities (if there aren’t you can make them) [1]
Category: Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Trans Herbert West, Trans Male Character, herbert backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:01:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22852912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asphaltworld/pseuds/asphaltworld
Summary: Herbert always says it takes too long to write things down. For Christmas, he bought Dan a recorder and a stack of cassettes. He said that it’s “to foster good note-taking habits.” That it’s more personal. That it’s harder for people to steal work recorded this way, because a voice is as good as a fingerprint.Herbert has a series of them, cassettes tapes tracking the changes in his voice.
Relationships: Daniel Cain/Herbert West
Series: you know, there’s a lot of opportunities (if there aren’t you can make them) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1656265
Comments: 6
Kudos: 56





	gimme a shot to remember

Herbert always says it takes too long to write things down. For Christmas, he bought Dan a recorder and a stack of cassettes. He said that it’s “to foster good note-taking habits.” That it’s more personal. That it’s harder for people to steal work recorded this way, because a voice is as good as a fingerprint. 

It turns out Dan can’t spend long around anyone without picking up a few of their habits. He finished his last cassette today, and he needs a new one. Herbert’s bound to have a bunch of fresh tapes floating around in his room.

Herbert lets Dan in his room now, so this shouldn’t be a big deal. He’s not going to check under the bed for dirty magazines (and is carefully not thinking about the kind of reading material he imagines Herbert would have), or look through his laundry or anything. He knows Herbert's worst secrets by now. 

He just needs a tape.

Sure enough, there’s a stack that Herbert keeps in his bookshelf. 

Beneath the blank tapes, there’s something that looks truly odd and out of place. A book of cassettes for Edgar Cayce, the sleeping prophet. It strikes Dan as fairly fucking suspicious because Herbert hates the metaphysical, thinks biology explains everything. They get into arguments about it over dinner half the nights they eat together. A year ago, he would have opened the case immediately. 

But he spent so long coaxing Herbert out of his shell, like an angry cat. He can’t blow it all on snooping in something probably mundane and boring. Maybe it’s porn. Readings of erotic literature. Who knows. Dan doesn’t, but it’s burning him up.

He sits in frustrated silence for all of thirty seconds before he grabs it and sets it on the coffee table by the front door and settles in to wait for Herbert to get home. The time is mostly spent staring into space in anticipation, until he hears the telltale jingle of keys by the door. He grabs a medical journal from the stack on the table and opens it at random. _Casual. Act fucking casual._

“Hey Herb,” he says, using a nickname he knows the man hates. “What’s this?”

Herbert, the drama queen, actually drops the paper cup of coffee he’d been holding. “Where did you find that?”

“I needed another tape.” He hopes Herbert will be pleased he’s been using the gift. 

“Did you listen to that?” Herbert hasn’t moved a muscle. His hand is still extended in the air, curled like he’s still holding the cup.

“No.” Herbert drops the hand, shakes himself off like a cat. Closes his eyes for a second. 

“Good. Do we really need to have the private room discussion again?” 

“The issue was never the room, it was the cat. You’ve let me into yours since then. I've seen you go into my room unattended. Come on.”

“That's because you’re an uncomplicated philistine without hidden depths,” Herbert sniffs.

“Not going to acknowledge that. So what’s with the tapes? Have you found God all of a sudden?”

Herbert storms downstairs without another word. The coffee’s seeping into the rug by the door. Probably ruining the wood. Herbert’s a whirlwind, always knocking over lab equipment, leaving stains in his wake, ruining his own shirts with blood and other fluids. He doesn’t care what he leaves behind. 

\---

Breakfast is tense, but by the time dinner comes around Herbert seems to have thawed out a bit. The line between his eyes is still deep, but he’s actually looking somewhere in the vicinity of Dan’s face now. 

“I don’t want you to think so little of me that I’d be taken in by a charlatan like that. A third-rate liar who gives people false hope. Fourth-rate, maybe. The point is that obviously, you want to know what I have on those tapes.”

“Yeah, Herbert. You have so many goddamn secrets, I never know what I’m getting myself into.”

Herbert laughs, one of those private, out-of-control laughs for his own benefit, usually at someone else’s expense. In public, Herbert never laughs. 

“You’re right about that. So just. Take these. So you _know what you’re getting yourself into._ I need somebody to know things about me.” He looks down at the table. “And you’re the most logical choice. I mean, you’re here all the time.” He says it like Dan is an annoying hanger-on.

He presses the tapes into Dan’s hand, stares into his eyes. “Remember, you didn’t leave when you saw the cat, or Meg’s father, or any of this.” 

He waits for Dan to take it. Dan’s slow to react, and he can’t think of anything to say. 

“I’ll be downstairs, working.”

\---

The cassettes are nondescript, labeled with numbers only. 

Dan’s very nervous about playing them. What kind of skeleton could this be? Herbert has already admitted to killing. He’s hard-pressed to think of something worse Herbert could have done to seem so ashamed.

He puts in the first tape and lets it play. His glass of whiskey is waiting on the table in front of him, along with the bottle. Just in case. 

The tape player whirs.

“I wonder what would happen if I tried using that same shit my dad uses,” comes a tiny, young-sounding voice. It’s uneven, sounds small and sad. “No one can tell me I'm not a man if I can make myself look more like them. Bet my shoulders would fill out my suits better. Now that I’m interning at the hospital I could probably get away with it, right? Doctors are always stealing sedatives for themselves.” The voice laughs, and the sound is strange to Dan’s ears. What is this? Why did Herbert give this to him? He feels nauseous trying to figure out what this has to do with his roommate and partner. There’s an undeniable familiarity to the rhythm of those words. A long-dead sibling? There’s a clicking sound to indicate the end of a recording.

“March 17, 1979. I want to remember this day. I’ve been flipping through all the old medical journals I can get my hands on, looking for female to male transsexuals. I finally found something, and it’s a _doctor_ , if you can believe that. I couldn't. I spent hours reading about all kinds of rumored, messy transplants of monkey testes, onto humans, that all ended badly. But one Alan Hart, he had his uterus removed. Because synthetic testosterone hadn’t been invented yet, but he needed to be male. And once it was invented, he started taking it.” There’s a shuffling noise, and the voice rises indignantly. “And can I say, what kind of powers of persuasion did this doctor possess? That they let him take out the offending organ? My god. This could be it. I’ve never looked at someone and wanted their life before.” 

“It’s May now. This is West again. Attended an injection training. Now I'm sure I can do this without killing myself, injecting an air bubble into my veins or what have you. I hope this works. Is it a mistake to record all this? I put these in a metaphysical studies cassette book, just in case. Nobody ever listens to those.”

Dan has a suspicion, by this point, about what’s going on. He does his best to reserve judgment and keep listening, like he’s learned to do over the past year. 

“First dosage, oh God. It didn’t hurt at all. I used the tiny needles, the ones you can barely feel. I’m shaking, shit.” A long, deep breath. “So. Expectations. I think I can expect a lower voice, facial hair perhaps? I hope to lose these fleshy legs. Body hair. Who knows what else this will do to me. I’ll keep a record here.” 

“A testosterone shortage in the hospital this week. Maybe lots of aging men coming through this week, who knows. They almost caught me this time, because they’re paying closer attention. The nurse asked, what do you want with that? And I said a very rich man was asking for it. Stupid. Like a line out of a soap opera. But she shut up about it after that. This is H. West, a very foolish and rash man.”

There it is. This is Herbert talking. 

“This is West, using a solution of 200 mg/mL, testosterone cypionate, at a dose of 0.5 mL per week. I've switched from using the buttocks to the thigh area. Far easier to reach and less likely to cause soreness. This is what my voice sounds like.”

“I can’t fucking believe my bitch roommate reported me to the dean,” he’s saying, and there’s audible traffic around him. “They told me they’ll try and find a room for me but as of right now i’m reduced to a park bench. That bitch, she doesn’t deserve the benefits of modern science if this is how she’ll treat its stewards. Oh, uh, week 17. This is what my voice sounds like.” 

“I haven’t taken my dose in four weeks or so. I’ve been selling it, so I can stay in an SRO. Bodybuilders, aging men no longer able to achieve erection, they all want it badly. One of them keeps trying to invite me up to his apartment. It’s funny to think how disappointed he would be, if I ever took him up on it. So I’m making a living, just barely. This is the sound of my voice. My name is Herbert. I’m telling everyone to call me that, and no one is the wiser.”

“Dose number 20. One of them wore me down. He has a sweet face, or something. He told me, $200 just to go to his place. I had my knife just in case. He wanted to ejaculate on my face, another hundred dollars, and for that kind of money, honestly, who am I to turn him down? I just want to be honest, here. Lying gets _boring_.” There’s a pause, a creak from his chair. “The taste reminds me of raw tomato. This is the first time I’ve seen someone orgasm. The way men do it is pretty... compelling.” 

“Herbert speaking. this is dose #46, week 55. Just after a year since the experiment started. Obviously I missed a few. This was a difficult year. I realize now I can’t share these results anywhere, because the dosage and conditions have been too unstable.”

“H. West here. Looking at old pictures, I can see exactly how far my hairline has moved up my forehead. Let's pray it goes no further. This recording is primarily so you can hear my vocal changes, which are significant. Not sure of dose number anymore, to be honest. I’m transferring to Switzerland, and thank god. They’ll call me Herbert with no hesitation. They know nothing but the name on my transcript. Which I changed, obviously. I’ll raise my dose before I go. There’s a doctor there, Dr. Gruber. His ideas are fascinating. I imagine he has a lot to teach me.” 

\---

Herbert is in the lab, staring at a pile of parts. Animal and human mixed. Dan’s glad he interrupted before anything came of it. 

“Jesus, Herbert, what is that?”

“Are you done with my notes? Have you come to return my heart-shaped diary, complete with youthful scrawlings?” He’s scowling.

It’s been hours. Not just the listening, but the thinking he’s been doing since the last entry. Dan doesn’t know what to say. He settles on this.

“Raw tomato?”

“I was young and inexperienced.”

“Clearly. Wow. Herbert, this means a lot.”

“Sharing my sexual history?” he says disdainfully, eyes fixed on the carnage sitting on the table.

“Sharing this information about you. Your past.” 

“My past,” Herbert echoes. “There’s a lot more to it than this, you know.”

He gets up to move restlessly around the room. “But it’s important that you know this, so you know what to do with my body in the event that I don’t. Succeed. We’ve had too many close calls. I saw someone at the hospital today, and it just made me think... I don’t want my father or some godforsaken aunt to bury me under the wrong name.”

“They won’t.”

“I didn’t know how else to tell you.”

He crosses the room and takes Herbert's face in his hands.

“It’s fine.”

Herbert shifts around and says, “Now you think you can fuck me, huh?”

“No. Jesus. I already knew you liked men.”

“How?” 

“I don’t know. Call it a feeling.” 

“Did you steal that line from a movie, Dan?”

Dan touches Herbert's mouth. It’s soft under his fingers. Blood rises to his face, cheeks and mouth staining pink. 

“What are you doing?”

“Is this okay?”

“I don’t mind.” He lets his mouth fall open, and Dan’s first two fingers slip in. Herbert closes his eyes and sucks on them, tracing his tongue along the length.

It’s going straight to his dick, lighting up nerves nowhere near his hands. Seeing Herbert below him, mouth wrapped around him... it’s all the fantasies he was too afraid to have consciously. Currently, he’s too preoccupied to feel afraid.

“I never could stop thinking about your mouth,” Dan says. 

“Oh yeah? Tell me more.” Herbert pulls his mouth off to say. Then he opens up again, like a request. Dan’s happy to oblige, sliding his hand along the soft inside of his mouth. 

“Fuck, Herbert,” Dan says. “Your mouth is the sexiest thing. You’re always licking your lips, making faces, like you know what it does to me. You bastard. Come _here._ ”

Herbert rises to his feet and is still about a head shorter than him, he notes with horny glee.

Dan gets his hands under the backs of his thighs, so he can hoist him up onto the metal worktable. He presses forward, between Herbert’s knees. The metal has to be uncomfortable, but Herbert squirms into his touch and digs his fingers into Dan’s shoulders with a fervor that means he must not care. 

Dan pulls back to get a better look. Herbert’s head is tilted back just slightly, and he’s out of breath, glasses askew. He looks strikingly similar to the way he does after a beating. 

“I respect you as a person and a scientist,” Dan says, because he wants to make that perfectly clear. Herbert seems to respond to bluntness. 

“Good.” He meets Dan’s eyes for a beat, defiant, before sliding his gaze down a few inches. “I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. Biology isn’t destiny. That’s the thesis of my work. Whatever I once was, I’m something else now.” 

“Are you up for this?”

“I am, with limits.”

“Of course,” Dan says. 

“I want you to think this through,” he says, with a pat to Dan’s chest. “Do you even really understand what’s up with me?”

“That girl in the first tape was you, right?”

Herbert curls a lip. “I wouldn’t put it like that exactly. Yes.” 

“You’re a transsexual?” Dan had deliberately avoided using that word, because it’s heavy and loaded and difficult to take back if he’s wrong. But he can’t think of anything else to say.

“That’s the medical term for it.”

“I didn’t know it was possible for...” Dan trails off. He doesn’t feel comfortable calling Herbert female, to any capacity. 

“Female to male transsexuals account for a small but significant minority of cases, yes.” 

“Okay,” Dan says. “Just so you know, I’m not batting 100 here. I’m pretty distracted by...” 

“I’m aware,” Herbert says coolly, gesturing down where Dan’s erection is pressing into his stomach. He doesn’t look all that bothered by it, though. More like smug. “I want you to know I’m not exactly lacking for options, here. So as far as sex goes, don’t start feeling like you’re God’s gift to Herbert.” 

Dan feels that’s not fair. “Come on. Would I do that?” 

Herbert flexes his thighs around him. “I think you might. Judging by your... track record.” He leans forward as he’s speaking, close enough where his breath is ghosting over Dan’s chest. He wants to feel Herbert’s mouth on him, but he can’t bring himself to ask for it.

“Can I just touch you, Herbert?” Dan asks, hearing the puppyish tone in his voice and feeling only a little ashamed. It’s always gotten him pretty far, in the past.

Herbert finally closes the gap, and it’s to deliver a short, sharp bite. Dan gasps. 

“Maybe later. I think you need more processing time.” He pushes Dan back, and hops down from the table. "Don’t strain your right arm,” Herbert says. “It has more noble work to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> a story told partly through "This is my voice on T" voice recordings is something that can actually be so personal, etc
> 
> the idea for this came to me when i was in the park making a voice note to track my voice changes and as i was saying the date i was like, i feel like herbert west. 
> 
> anyway i’ve fallen ass-first into obsession with this 80s horror series and i obviously get a kick out of all the needle imagery. goddamn it’s easy to read herbert as trans!  
> hoping to write more in this vein at some point...


End file.
